Transatlantic flight, virgin or BA

Choice of either for a cattle class flight to east coast. Cost is the same. Are either significanty better than the other?Never flown virgin, and haven't flown with BA since I was a kid, so experience probably isn't valid.

I don't know which is better. My only experience of Virgin economy was back from Johannesburg a couple of years ago and it was OK but I was surprised to be so cramped (I'm 5'8 & under 11 stone) so I'd give BA a go in the hope they may be better.

All the airlines have gone downhill in the past few years, cost cutting means there is no slack in anything anymore, one little problem and it disrupts everything. Of all the airlines I have flown, Virgin is close to the worst (although nobody could be as bad as United) food terrible, staff churlish and rude, always some kind of delay.

BA. First long haul flight outside of the RAF was to Vancouver this year with BA. I hate long haul but I have no complaints whatsoever. With BA the fact you get to use T5 was a decider. Easiest, cleanest and most modern terminal I've personally been in.

I've been told that the leg room in Virgin is not as forgiving and the interiors are a bit aged. That was friends who used a340 and b747 to Vegas.

They're all the same; I don't know why people agonise about choice of airline. It all comes down to your experience on the day; are there any delays and if so, how does the airline handle them? Next is the particular cabin crew member looking after your section and a whole lot of other things like the meal, the film, your neighbours and the seat.

What matters to me is schedules and timings; for a long-haul flight I like to sleep overnight and (with luck) wake up on the approach. If there's a transit, I don't want to be wasting hours at some ghastly dump like Heathrow and I don't want to be doing an extra five-hour dogleg east to Dubai or Doha if I'm going to somewhere in Africa.

That said, I never use BA because they are more expensive than other airlines, their crew are more snotty and they played some really dirty tricks in the campaign against Virgin Atlantic.